Maybe I Think You're Cute and Funny
by litvirg
Summary: "Lydia groaned at the poster advertising the junior prom which was, very insensitively she thought, taped up on her locker door. She knew she wouldn't be asked. Especially not by who she wanted to be asked by. Stile Stilinski."


Lydia groaned at the poster advertising the junior prom which was, very insensitively she thought, taped up on her locker door. She knew she wouldn't be asked. Especially not by who she wanted to be asked by.

Stile Stilinski.

She slammed her locker shut and turned around just in time for her to catch him walking by. She started to wave her hand in a wave, but he didn't look over, so she let her hand drop before she looked too foolish. She sighed and, tearing the poster down, made her way to class. It didn't help though, that Stiles was in almost every one of her classes.

There was no way to avoid him, and absolutely no way to stop thinking about him. He sat further back in the classroom which helped keep her mind off him a bit, but as soon as he would speak up her mind would whip right back over to him. He could almost even keep up with her their classes, which was basically unheard of in all of Beacon Hills history. Nobody kept up with Lydia Martin.

Shoving thoughts of prom and Stiles to the back of her mind, she made her way to her chemistry class. At her usual lab table sat, not Danny who was usually there, but a girl she didn't recognize. She walked over slowly, and gave her a long side glance, before she decided that the girl was actually waiting for her to sit down, and she plunked herself onto the lab stool.

"So...you're not Danny?" she said and then cringed at how awkward she was. She felt stupid for thinking it, but this girl was a chance to actually finally make a new friend, one who wasn't Danny who had known her since they were little, or Scott who she suspected pitied her a bit and was far too nice a person to let her go virtually friendless. But the girl laughed, shaking her head and holding out her hand.

"I'm Allison. New here. First day, obviously." She shook Lydia's hand. "What's your name?"

"Lydia," she said quietly. "Lydia Martin."

Allison gave her a small smile. "Unfortunately, you got stuck with me as a lab partner, and I'm not that great at chemistry. Are you any good?"

Lydia allowed herself a wide smile. "Yeah," she nodded. "I'm pretty good."

Allison, as it turned out, was in nearly all of Lydia's classes too, so she stuck by her almost all day.

"Thanks for showing me around," Allison said. "I know it must suck getting stuck with the new girl on her first day."

"I don't mind," Lydia said. "Actually...want to come over to my place? We can study and order a pizza if you want?"

Allison smiled broadly. "Yeah that sounds great. Let me get my stuff and I'll meet you outside?" Lydia nodded, closing her locker and moving down the hall toward the front doors. She leaned against the brick building, waiting for Allison to meet her, when Scott, followed shortly by Stiles, approached her.

"Hey Lydia!" Scott smiled.

"Hi Scott," she said happily in return Then she turned to Stiles. "Hey Stiles."

He gave her a small smile and a nod before Scott spoke again. "So how have you been Lydia? It's been a while since we hung out?" He was looking at her with wide eyes and shifting from foot to foot.

"Um...have we ever actually hung out, Scott?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Have we not?" His voice was a pitch or two higher than normal. "Oh. Huh. Well we should."

Stiles rolled his head back and groaned. "Seriously, man? Just ask her."

"Ask me what?" she turned her attention to Stiles, who looked like he very much did not want to be talking to her.

"He wants to know the new girl's name," he said, bored. "Apparently they are soul mates or something."

"They're soul mates and he doesn't know her name?" Lydia laughed.

Stiles waved his arms emphatically towards Lydia, looking at Scott pointedly. "That's what I said!"

Lydia put an arm on Scott's shoulder. "Her name is Allison. And you should just talk to her next time. Or right now," she said as Allison walked through the doors towards them. "Offer her a ride home," she whispered in Scott's ear.

"Hey Lydia! Ready?"

Scott looked to Lydia with a panicked expression. It was sort of cute how excited he was about her, and Lydia really didn't have the heart to take away his opportunity. She forced herself to frown at Allison. "

Actually I'm going to have to bail. My mom needs my help with some random house renovation or another, but I made sure to keep tomorrow free, how's that?"

Allison looked momentarily disappointed, but quickly smiled and told Lydia that that would work great. Scott stood silently.

"Allison," Lydia found herself saying. "This is my friend Scott McCall, and his friend Stiles Stilinski."

"Oh," Allison said looking over at them for the first time. "Hi, I'm Allison. I'm new here, and Lydia was just showing me around." "

Lydia's really nice!" Scott blurted.

"Yep," Stiles said crooking an eyebrow at him. "So nice in fact that she said she'd give me a ride home since her house is closer to mine than yours is."

Lydia nearly choked. "R-right." She cleared her throat. "Allison, do you have a ride home?"

"I can give you one!" Scott exclaimed.

"Down boy," Stiles muttered and Lydia had to cough in order to smother her laugh.

But Allison was looking at him like she thought it was adorable."Okay then, if you don't mind."

She gave Lydia one last smile before turning and walking away with Scott.

"So..." Stiles trailed off. "Can you give me a ride home?"

Lydia felt her cheeks heat up, and hoped she wasn't blushing. "Sure," she said calmly. "No problem."

Except it was a problem. Lydia had no idea where Stiles lived and he kept forgetting to give her directions until she had already passed the turn and she could feel her heart beating faster than normal at being in such close proximity to him for a change when, and was freaking out that she would undoubtedly say something stupid and dorky that would embarrass her and make him uncomfortable. After the fourth missed turn Lydia lost her control.

"Jeez Stiles! Don't you know where you live?"

"Sorry!" He held his hands up. "I'll give you some gas money, it's not a big deal."

"For you, maybe," she grumbled.

That was the thing about Stiles. He was smart and he was clever and funny and he was gorgeous and nice, and everybody loved him. But because everybody loved him he had grown a little accustomed to people bending over backwards to please him, and not caring when they were inconvenienced by him. He got everything because people were happy to give it. Lydia had no idea what that was like. Everything she had, she'd had to work for. Yes she was smart, but it's not as if she maintained a perfect GPA by not doing anything. It was hard for her to make friends, she was shy and a little awkward at times and nobody had ever thought that they should go out of their way to help her.

Stiles was looking at her with wide, curious eyes. "

Just give me the address and I can put it in the GPS. Then I don't have to worry about you missing the next turn." He nodded, looking a little upset, but punched his address into her GPS, and rode the rest of the way home in silence. When she pulled into his driveway he turned to her before getting out of the car.

"Look, I'm sorry. I just figured it wasn't a big deal because I thought you didn't have plans later."

Lydia scoffed. "Of course you did."

"No, that's not what I-"

"Goodbye, Stiles," she said and turned her head back to the windshield, shifting the car into reverse while he slammed the door shut and walked up to his house.

Lydia avoided Stiles the day after the car ride. And the week after that. And the week after that. Not that she'd had much cause to see him before, since he mostly hung around the lacrosse team and she mostly hung around the library, but started looking away when she saw him instead of trying to wave. She'd get to classes later than usual to slip into her seat at the front without having to worry about him randomly deciding to talk to her (however unlikely that was) and she started meeting Allison in her car, instead of out by the doors where Scott, and therefor Stiles, were likely to come up to her.

After the car ride, Lydia had decided that she needed to stop dreaming about Stiles Stilinski. He clearly was never going to think of her as anything other than his best friend's dorky friend, and it was silly to think otherwise. Unfortunately, that meant spending most of her free time alone in the library. Not that that was much different than before, but now she had Allison and it sucked avoiding your best friend just because you're trying to get over a stupid crush.

That Friday when they were doing homework, Allison brought it up.

"Are you okay? I feel like you've been keeping to yourself a lot this week."

Lydia looked up from her chemistry text book. "Yeah, I'm fine!" She could tell Allison didn't believe her.

"Scott's noticed too."

"Well," Lydia sighed. "I'm fine. I'll even wait with him and Stiles for you on Monday, even though watching you two flirt isn't exactly my favorite activity. Don't know why Stiles does it."

"Stiles hasn't really waited around at the end of the day anymore. He waited until I came that second day, but then left when he saw me coming. He hasn't been there since, though." Allison chewed on the end of her pen a bit. "You know," she started up again. "We could go to the lacrosse game tonight. Scott said he'd love it if we came."

Lydia raised her eyebrows at her friend. "You mean he'd love it if you came."

"Please? Then Scott can stop worrying about you being dead and we can have an excuse to stop doing our homework?" Allison gave her best pouty face until Lydia put down her pen and slammed her book shut.

"Fine, we can go to the game." Allison squealed and gave a quick squeeze before running to get her coat.

Lydia had no idea why she'd agreed to go to the game. Never in her life had she been to a school lacrosse game. Or any lacrosse game. No one had ever asked her to go to one, and it wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to do alone. So she'd just stayed away. She wished she'd stayed away now, because while Allison was having a great time watching Scott, Lydia had to keep reminding herself not to watch Stiles. She knew it was stupid- he was captain of the team and a really excellent player so it was actually quite difficult not to pay attention to him. She focused a lot of attention on her nachos, and kept missing when the team scored a goal and wound up cheering a beat or two after everyone else. If it wasn't for the nachos, she would have considered it a night wasted.

When the game was over, Scott jogged over to them to talk to her and Allison (mostly Allison) and Lydia felt suddenly awkward.

"C'mere," Scott said, grabbing Allison's hand and leading her down closer to the field. "I want to show you something." Allison shot a confused but happy look over her shoulder to Lydia, who was trailing slightly behind them. When they got to the field, five members of the lacrosse team, including Stiles, were holding up signs that spelled out PROM? right on the field and Scott turned to Allison, a hopeful look on his face.

Lydia was glad she had trailed behind, leaving some room between her and the couple. It was sweet, she knew it was. Scott was nice and a good guy and seemed to really like Allison, but Lydia felt her stomach curl and her throat get tight. Slowly she began backing away, toward her car, texting Allison to let her know where she went.

As she left she caught Stiles' eye and quickly turned away, not wanting him of all people to see her upset about something so stupid. And she knew it was stupid.

She shouldn't be upset about her friend getting asked to prom. She should be happy for her. And she was, mostly. She just didn't like to be reminded of how she really only had a social life because of Allison. And Allison who had only been in Beacon Hills for just nearly three weeks was soaring above her in popularity. She already had a boy half in love with her while Lydia, who had lived there her whole life, still flew under just about everybody's radar.

"Come on, Lydia!" Allison whined from behind the curtain in the changing room. "Won't you try on at least one dress?"

"That wouldn't be helpful or productive, seeing as I'm here to help you find a dress, not get one myself." Lydia glanced down at her watch. Shopping was not super exciting when you were just sitting around looking at other people buy clothes, and she was getting hungry. Allison whipped open the curtain, catching her watch the time.

"Subtle," she scoffed. "What do you think of this one?" Lydia glanced up at her friend. She looked magnificent, in a simple silver dress.

"I think poor Scott has no idea what he's in for," she joked. Allison was rubbing her hands down along the dress, smiling at herself in the mirror. Then she turned back to Lydia.

"Go get a pretzel, I know you want to. I'll try on a few more and send you a picture if any of them are contenders, alright?"

Lydia smiled and nodded, practically running to the food court to get a pretzel. In the line however, she ran into none other than Stiles Stilinski.

"Oh, hi," she said when he turned around.

"Hey Lydia," he said.

"Is Scott here?" She began craning her neck trying to find him.

"Uh, no. Just me. You by yourself?"

"No, Allison is trying on prom dresses, I'm just taking a food break."

He looked at her curiously. "You're not trying dresses on?"

Lydia shook her head. "I don't think I'm going to prom," she pressed her lips together, feeling a blush work it's way up her neck. Why did she have to be talking to Stiles Stilinski of all people about how she was too much of a loser to get asked to prom?

"You're not?" He seemed genuinely surprised. She shook her head, staring down at his feet.

"Actually," he said. "Lydia I've been meaning to ask you..."

She stared up at him as he trailed off. "What?"

"Uh," he began fiddling with the strings of his hoodie. "Will you uh, tutor me? In, erm, trig?"

Lydia let out a breath in disappointment. Not that she had been expecting him to ask her to prom, but he couldn't have found a better segue between going to prom and asking her to tutor him?

"Sure," she said. "We can start this week if that works for you?"

He nodded. "Great, that's uh, great. See you later!" He called, abandoning the pretzel line and walking away.

"So this is why you keep blowing me off?" Allison said, plunking down in the chair across from Lydia in the library. Lydia's head snapped up in shock. "What poor soul suckered you into tutoring them?"

"Um," she said. "Stiles?"

Allison's jaw dropped. "Stiles? But he's like a genius. I mean not as smart as you, obviously, no one is as smart as you, but honestly what does he need tutoring for?"

"Trig?"

"Lydia, are you in his trig class?" Lydia shook her head. It was one of the few classes they didn't have together.

"Well," Allison gave her a smirk. "Have fun!" And with that she got up and left, bumping into Stiles on her way out, stopping him to whisper something in his ear, which left him blushing but looking uncomfortable and a bit annoyed.

"What was that about?" Lydia asked when he sat down.

"Nothing," Stiles muttered. "Let's just get started?"

Stiles was easy to tutor. He would do the work quickly, making only a few minor errors which he would immediately fix as soon as Lydia pointed them out. And then, after her conversation with Allison, Lydia started to wonder why he wanted a tutor at all.

"Stiles, this is pointless." He looked up from his work abruptly.

"What? No, I'm getting it!"

"No," she smiled. "You've got it. You really don't need a tutor. You realize your mistakes before I can point them out half the time. Why don't we call it a day early?"

If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that Stiles looked disappointed. But she did know better. "Well," he said. "Are you hungry? Want to go grab a milkshake or something?"

Lydia just stared at him. Did Stiles Stilinski just ask her if she wanted to go do something with him? Something that wasn't tutoring? She realized she'd been silent for too long.

"Sure," she said trying to sound breezy. "That'd be cool."

She drove them to get milkshakes, just like she drove him home every day because Scott was his ride to school, and she had a car. He payed for her milkshake, insisting that it was to put towards the gas money he owed her.

"Thanks," she said taking a sip.

"No problem," he said. He slid into the booth across from her.

She was surprised, she found, at how easy it was to talk to Stiles. It probably would have been a bit awkward if they didn't have a few days of tutoring under their belts, but she could relax (mostly) around him now. She felt an odd sort of disappointment when she realized her milkshake had been gone for nearly an hour and a half, and that she needed to get going if she was going to make it home in time for dinner.

She dropped him off at his house, and watched as he walked up his driveway to his front door. She noticed he left a book on the floor where his feet had been. She grabbed it and jumped out of the car.

"Stiles!" she called, jogging to catch up to him. "You left this."

He took the book and laughed. "Thanks. That was a close call. If I didn't have the French homework done, I'd certainly look like a fool in class tomorrow."

"Oh please," she said. "You can speak circles around everyone in that class."

He smiled. "Everyone except you."

"Well that was implied," she joked, marveling at the fact that she could now joke with Stiles Stilinksi.

"God, how have you not been asked to prom?" he breathed.

She felt her cheeks burn. "What?"

He dropped the book onto his porch, and brought both hands up to cup her face, sliding one back to the nape of her neck and kissed her long and slow. He pulled away after a few moments, leaning his forehead against hers. "That's what I really meant to ask you that day at the mall. If you'd go to prom with me. I chickened out."

She couldn't believe it. She was sure she was dreaming. But then she felt his fingers carding through her hair, and that was definitely real so she just closed her eyes and asked "Really?"

He nodded, his forehead rubbing up an down against hers. "So how about it?" He pulled back to look her in the eyes, his own eyes wide and hopeful.

Lydia smiled.


End file.
